Monday, February 1, 2010

How Precious Is Your Little Wheezer?

I can’t help but show you this picture of my wonderful daughter-in-law, Kristin, giving a nebulizer treatment to my youngest grandson, Trey. A month ago he was diagnosed with bronchiolitis while I was visiting them in Sugar Hill, Ga., for Christmas, and the poor little guy is still wheezing.

He’s was only four months old months old when all this started (see my post from Jan. 4 for the whole story), so when the doctor prescribed nebulizer treatments, we had to find a place in town to buy the nebulizer in a hurry. Not impressed with the compressor options available or the nebulizer set-up (medicine cup, mask and tubing) that came with it. The machine is noisy, and more medication streamed into the air than into his little airways.

Being the grandma that I am, I ordered Monaghan AeroEclipse®II Breath Activated Nebulizers and baby masks sent to their house (the nebulizer is the part that the medicine goes into; click here to read an AANMA article for parents of very young children about using nebulizers). What a difference! No more escaping mist, and Dan and Kristin love that they can see that the baby is actually getting the medication, thanks to a little green ball on the cap of the medication cup that moves down when the baby is inhaling-- and as soon as the baby stops inhaling, it pops back up.

That little green ball does more than just reassure grandparents like me and parents like Dan and Kristin. It’s the mechanism that allows the flow of medication only during inhalation.

Trey is five months old now, but he’s officially one of AANMA’s PRECIOUS Breathers! While he hasn’t been diagnosed with asthma as yet, with our family history, Dan and Kristin are taking no chances. They already had him blood tested (Immunocap) for allergens they knew were already in the home (a cat, a dog, dust mites, etc.)--and so far, so good.

Trey’s pediatrician is treating both the bronchospasm (with a nebulized bronchodilator) and airway inflammation (with a nebulized corticosteroid) in hopes of staving off the development of long-term symptoms. Trey was too young to get an H1N1 flu shot, but the rest of the family got theirs when the vaccines first came out.

What does all this have to do with AANMA’s PRECIOUS Breathers program? PRECIOUS Breathers is a growing group of families of babies, toddlers and preschoolers who, like Trey, wheeze, cough and exhibit other symptoms of asthma but may or may not yet have a diagnosis. It’s important to treat symptoms and use as many preventive options as possible to give these little ones a great start. And that’s what PRECIOUS Breathers is all about.

Babies grow at an amazing rate, and their little brains, muscles and organs need plenty of clean air to grow to the fullest potential. You would never allow someone to place a plastic bag over your child’s face for even a moment. While that example may seem drastic, that’s what asthma and other respiratory conditions do during those coughing and gagging and wheezing episodes--they restrict breathing!

PRECIOUS Breathers is for parents--even those who think they're asthma and allergy experts because of personal history. My son, Dan, grew up with exercise- and virally induced asthma, and his sister Brooke’s asthma was very severe. But his perspective as a parent is very different, and he’s now reading AANMA’s website, our magazine, Allergy & Asthma Today, and all our e-mail updates and blogs with new appreciation. Kristin, a physician’s assistant, recently remarked, “Why didn’t they teach us this stuff when I was in medical training!”

The nuances of raising wee ones who may or may not have asthma can be perplexing, and that’s why we created PRECIOUS Breathers; start-up funding was made possible in 2009 by AstraZeneca.

Sign up for PRECIOUS Breathers today and we’ll send you a little PRECIOUS Breathers iron-on logo! Put it on a onesie or a toddler T-shirt. Tell us your story. Send us a picture and we’ll post it (first name and age only) on AANMA’s PRECIOUS Breathers web page!

Be part of the first generation of parents utilizing never-before-available resources to minimize the progression of asthma.

By way of disclosure, Monaghan Medical, AeroEclipse II, Immunocap (Phadia) did not and were not asked to pay for mention in this blog. Start-up funding for PRECIOUS Breathers was provided during 2009 but is now an unfunded project supported by your donations and AANMA membership fees. Thank you!

Nancy Sander
President and founder
Allergy & Asthma Network Mothers of Asthmatics (AANMA)
2751 Prosperity Ave. Suite 150
Fairfax, VA 22031
703-641-9595

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